In 1963, Faith 7, the last Mercury mission, was launched. Astronaut L. Gordon Cooper successfully completed the mission. He orbited Earth 22-1/2 times and was weightless for over 34 hours. Learn more at http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/mercury/missions/faith7.html

In 1973, Skylab, the first U.S. Space Station was launched. Crews visited Skylab and returned to Earth in Apollo spacecraft. Three 3-man crews occupied the Skylab workshop for a total of 171 days and 13 hours. Learn more at http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/skylab/.

In 1991, Apple released Macintosh System 7.0. System 7 was too large to work comfortably from a floppy disk so it was the first version of the Macintosh operating system to require a hard drive. It was also the first Apple operating system to be

In 1941, German Konrad Zuse’s Z3 was introduced in Berlin. It was a fully program-operational calculating machine. Konrad Zuse also developed the Z4, the first programmable modern computer, making him the father of the computer. He also wrote the first algorithmic programming language called ‘Plankalkül’.

In 1951, Jay Forrester applied for a patent for magnetic core memory. Until then, large glass electrostatic tubes were used. They were very unreliable, failing every twenty to sixty minutes. Forrester began a search for reliable memory capability. This would lead him to make one

In 2011, Microsoft announced its plans to purchase Skype for $8.5 billion. The acquisition was completed in October of last year. It was considered by many to be Microsoft’s boldest move yet. There are 170 million active Skype users worldwide, and, in 2010, users made